Ukraine: Communism Officially Criminalized

The Parliament, a majority of whose deputies are anti-Russian, voted a law forbidding all “Nazi and Communist totalitarian regime propaganda” on April 9. The French Communist Party says this “threatens democracy and pluralism.”

Two hundred and fifty-four deputies voted in favor of this decision, which required a minimum of 226 votes. The text forbids “any public negation” of their “criminal character” as well as any “production,” “circulation,” or “public use” of their symbols.

This is a practical way for president Poroshenko, backed by Brussels and Washington, to get rid of a Ukrainian Communist Party (PCU) which is still influential and whose leaders have regularly been threatened and physically attacked by small far right groups that are close to the government.

In a press statement, the French Communist Party states that “President Petro Poroshenko has taken a new step in the deep crisis that is plunging the country into a social, economic and political void.”

“Putting the ideology of Nazi barbarism and Communism on the same footing indicates a desire to favor negationism on the crimes of the Bandera gang, who were allies of the SS against the Ukrainian Resistance and the country’s liberation by the soldiers of the Red Army,” the French Communist Party said indignantly. It continues, saying “on the pretext of condemning totalitarian regimes, in reality Petro Poroshenko threatens democracy and pluralism.”

In the night of April 10-11, three monuments to communist leaders were removed by persons unknown in Kharkiv, a big industrial city of 1.4 million inhabitants, an administrative center in the border region of the pro-Russian separatist zones of Donetsk and Lugansk. The monuments were taken down in the same way by young people wearing masks. The police watched the removal of one of the monuments without intervening.